mHealthApps:
A Repository and Database of Mobile Health Apps
The market of mobile health (mHealth) applications (apps) has rapidly evolved in the
past decade. With more than 100,000 mHealth apps currently
available, there is not a centralized resource that collects information of
these health-related apps for researchers in this field to effectively evaluate
the strength and weakness of these apps. Our goal is to create a centralized mHealth app repository and we expect the analysis of
information in this repository can provide insights for future mHealth research developments. We have focused on the apps
from two most established app stores, the Apple App Store and the Google Play
Store. We extracted the detailed information of each health-related app in
these two app stores via our python crawling program, and then stored the
information in both a user-friendly array format and a standard JSON format. We
have developed a centralized resource that provides the detailed information of
more than 60,000 apps related to health in the Apple App Store and Google Play
Store. This resource enables us to analyze thousands of apps systematically and
efficiently, and can be utilized to provide an overview of the trends for mHealth apps. This unique database allows the meta-analysis
of health-related apps and provides guidance for research designs of future
apps in the mHealth field.
Data based on Apple App Store: (version 1.3,
last updated on Dec. 04, 2014, and will be updated quarterly)
Provide flat files
with array format (each line contains 1 record: 39
features, separated by tab; encoded with
¡®utf8mb4¡¯):
Health
& Fitness in United States (sample)
Health & Fitness in China
Health
& Fitness in Japan
Health
& Fitness in Brazil
Health & Fitness in Russia
Medical
in United States
Medical
in China
Medical
in Japan
Medical in Brazil
Medical
in Russia
Provide flat files
with JSON format (encoded with ¡®utf-8¡¯):
Health
& Fitness in United States (sample)
Health & Fitness in China
Health
& Fitness in Japan
Health
& Fitness in Brazil
Health & Fitness in Russia
Medical
in United States
Medical
in China
Medical
in Japan
Medical
in Brazil
Medical
in Russia
Data based on Google Play Store: (version 1.3,
last updated on Dec. 06, 2014, and will be updated quarterly)
Provide flat files
with array format (each line contains 1 record: 27 features,
separated by tab; encoded with ¡®utf8mb4¡¯):
Health
& Fitness in United States (sample)
Medical in United States
Provide flat files with
JSON format (encoded with ¡®utf-8¡¯):
Health
& Fitness in United States (sample)
Medical in United States
*Note:
Files
can be opened with notepad++, editplus or
other text editors (Windows default notepad is not recommended due to the large
file size).
Flat files with array formats can also be imported to
Excel (sample).
*Disclaimer:
The
complete dataset is freely available upon request, and is limited for personal
& non-commercial use only. When sending your request, please indicate your
school or institute, the version you need, and use the subject such as ¡°Request
mHealthApps 2014Q4 version¡± to send an email to: (¡° noSpam ¡±==¡±@¡±)
komunling noSpam gmail.com
yin.liu noSpam uth.tmc.edu
Thank you!
*Please
cite as:
Xu
W, Liu Y
mHealthApps:
A Repository and Database of Mobile Health Apps
JMIR
mHealth uHealth 2015;3(1):e28
URL:
http://mhealth.jmir.org/2015/1/e28/
doi:10.2196/mhealth.4026
PMID:
Thank
you!